Dreamer
by lightning bug
Summary: Sam's subconscious doesn't want him to move on. It sends Ava to remind him. Implied SamAva, post2.22


**Disclaimer**: Kripke owns the show, I'm just playing around with it.

**Notes**: Big thanks to Insane Troll Logic for beta-ing this, my first Supernatural fic. Go easy on me.

* * *

Sam has a lot of dreams. 

Correction: Sam has a lot of dreams about Ava.

If Sam were to think back to his Psych 101 class, he could say that it's a manifestation of guilt or maybe something Freudian (because it's always Freudian) but he knows the real reason without any analysis.

Ava scares him.

Of all the people with abilities he had met, Ava seemed the most harmless. He even would have put money on Andy going evil before her. But no, it's Ava, Ava the secretary, Ava the bride-to-be, Ava with the normal life who murdered dozens of people. She's the one who became the villain.

Evil looks in the window of Sam's mind and asks _so why hasn't it happened to you yet?_

Sam doesn't want the answer for that.

* * *

Dean is still Dean. That's not much of a surprise. Maybe it's all some elaborately constructed façade, but Sam doubts it. He seems lighter and happier, like killing the Yellow-Eyed Demon makes up for losing his soul in the process. 

Sam wishes he thought so too, but he can't shake the feeling that this isn't over, that it ended all too easily. He had expected much worse.

But then again, how much worse can you get once you find out that your brother sold his soul to bring you back to life?

Sam's thankful for it—what can he say, he likes being alive—but he carries that burden now, of knowing that Dean traded it all just for him. He remembers Dean's silent desperation last year, his hidden self-loathing, and Sam's scared that it'll happen to him now.

He's always been more like his brother than he knows.

* * *

Ava kills him over and over in his sleep. 

Sam dreams different deaths every night; murdered by a spirit, thrown against a wall, stabbed (again).

She never kills him with her bare hands. The logical part of his mind, the part telling him to move on, thinks that even if Ava had super-strength, she probably couldn't reach his neck to strangle him. The other part of his brain, the part that hasn't seen common sense recently, thinks it's because Ava wouldn't do that.

If there's one thing the Demon loved, it was children that used their powers. So, no, Ava wouldn't kill him bare-handed. She'd kill him with her powers, just so she could show him what he could have had. What he could have been, if he had picked up on that same learning curve.

Neither of these theories makes the nightmares go away.

Ava always says sorry before she kills him.

Sam always struggles not to forgive her.

* * *

He goes through the motions. 

Find a town, fight a demon, move on.

All the while, Dean acts like it isn't some big deal that the hounds are coming for his soul in less than a year. Maybe in some quiet moment while driving down some dark road, the worry shows in his face, but he'll catch Sam looking and break into a smile. It's one of Dean's rare genuine smiles, as though seeing Sam is a reminder that everything he's done is worth it.

Sam seriously doubts that.

He starts to bury himself in research each time they hit a new town so that Dean will get bored and go looking for the nearest bar. That's when he pulls out his notes on souls sold and crossroads demons, looking for some sort of clue.

He avoids anything about necromancy and what happened to the people brought back. He doesn't want to think about it, even acknowledge that it happened. He doesn't want to know if it changed him.

Sam cares about Dean, not himself. He doesn't want to look at his own problem in the eye.

See Sammy run. Run, Sammy, Run.

* * *

He kills Ava in his sleep. 

He kills a lot of people in his sleep, actually.

Sam's dreams are sprawling what-if scenarios played out in Cold Oak. The Demon had said Sam was his favorite. In his dreams, that's what he becomes; Sam is the leader the Demon always wanted him to be

Sam kills Andy, and Jake, and Lilly, and everyone who comes before or after them. He's the good little soldier that his dad had wanted, poised to become the leader of Hell's army.

The dream always ends with Ava's death. His subconscious has a way of saving the best for last.

He sees fear and betrayal in her eyes as the black smoke fills the room (_Calling demons is interesting. In the wrong hands, it could be dangerous for everyone. In my hands, it's just dangerous for you_). Sam hears her pleas and a part of him wants to stop. But he knows that she's better off dead.

When Sam wakes up in a cold sweat from the nightmares, he can't help but think the same thing about himself.

* * *

The dreams are bad enough to make him want to avoid sleep. Much as he would try to avoid sleep every night after a premonition, he now challenges the darkness to take him. 

The darkness usually wins, but not without a fight; Sam counts sheep, he tosses and turns, he sleeps so lightly that some idiot getting ice at three A.M. wakes him up; he does anything to take his mind off of Ava and the pain she brings him when she sleeps.

Sam's had plenty of horrible dreams, but something about these bother him. Maybe he's finally breaking. Everyone always thought that little Sammy wasn't strong enough for this life. They could be right.

"You sleeping okay?" Dean asks him one day after Sam jerks awake in the passenger's seat.

Dean's looking out for him, like he always does, because that's what makes him Dean.

Sam says, yeah, he's sleeping fine, and he worries about what he'll be when Dean's gone.

* * *

The worst nightmares aren't really nightmares at all. 

When he sleeps, he creates a world where he found Ava before the Demon did. She starts to travel with them for her own safety and she becomes a part of their life. Scenes play out in his head: Ava laying down salt lines, Ava belting out "Back in Black" with Dean, Ava falling asleep with a pile of books in front of her and her head on Sam's shoulder.

Sam falls in love with Ava hundreds of times and the dreams never end in blood and fire.

Sam dreams of normalcy, or at least what passes for it in his life.

He dreads those dreams the most.

* * *

"Cemetery parking lots are depressing." 

"Cemeteries are inherently depressing, Dean."

Sam tastes the ash of the burned bones as he talks. Another day, another act of arson. Another day closer to Dean's reckoning. Another day that Sam retreats into his own head.

In other words, it's his life now.

"Sam!"

Sam freezes in place, the shovel thrown over his shoulder starting to slip from his grasp. It's her voice, calling his name.

He turns around slowly and sees Ava standing not six feet away from him. There's something not quite right about her, with her fuzzy edges that seem to fade into the night. Her hair blurs into a halo that frames her hesitant smile. The few remaining flames from the burning coffin cast her in a red glow. She looks as though she walked out of his head and onto the bright black pavement.

The conversation of dreams plays in his head ("_Are you alright?" "I think so. What happened to me?" "I'm not sure, but my brother and I, we can help you."_) because that's what this is, it has to be, but those words never come out.

Ava steps closer to him and says, "It's starting, Sam, and it's going to be bad. I'm a part of it, but I wanted to find you before it starts, to warn you." She lifts her hand to his cheek and he feels warm air where fingers should be. "I'm sorry, Sam, I really am." Sam doesn't say anything because his tongue feels like lead. Ava giggles softly, "You know, this whole 'stunned silence' thing isn't really working for you."

"Ava," he breathes.

Sweet smile, big eyes, and then she's gone.

Sam stays in the same place.

"Uh, Sam," Dean says from behind him, "Did some chick just talk crazy to you and then disappear?" When Sam doesn't answer, he presses harder. "What the hell was that?"

"That was Ava."

"Ava? How in the hell-"

Sam doesn't hear past that. Suddenly, the last piece of the Yellow-Eyed Demon's puzzle falls into place. In his mind, Ava joins Evil at the window and says _Took you long enough_.

"Would the Demon really go to the trouble of giving all these kids powers if he only wanted to use one of them as a leader?"

Sam watches as Dean's mind works. "He wouldn't."

"No, because that doesn't make any sense. We were supposed to be the first soldiers. But everyone was killed at Cold Oak. If they all went to Hell, then that means they were the first ones out when the gates were opened."

Sam's mind is a film reel playing the Demon's message over and over. On every other frame is Ava's face. It all makes sense now.

"Do you know what this means?" Sam asks.

"I don't know about you, but I think it means we're gonna be going after some special dead children," Dean says, and Sam's not really surprised to see a smile on his face. "We might need some help."

That night they drive to Bobby's and Sam dreams of Ava walking away.


End file.
